Don't Speak
by Stephane Richer
Summary: It's all ending I gotta stop pretending who we are


Don't Speak

Disclaimer: I don't own JK Rowling's Harry Potter or No Doubt's "Don't Speak".

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They haven't seen one another in a while. She's been cutting back on hours, or more accurately they're forcing her to. They've made it clear that the ministry no longer tolerates "her kind", that the gentle urging to cut back will be replaced with a schedule change and finally a firing, that she will not easily be able to get another job, that she cannot count on them for references if she wants to apply somewhere.

He's got job security. He doesn't notice what's going on around him; he's too high up on the ladder for anyone like her to be around him. He blames her never working late on her laziness, never outright but he implies it like hell. She tries to tell him, but it just looks like she's making excuses and she stops her mouth from saying it.

She doesn't go right home. She goes to a café, a muggle one that he wouldn't know from any other. He won't even try to look for her there. She waits for time to pass, sits there alone as her tea grows colder until it reaches the point where it's undrinkable. She heads home when the waiters start to give her dirty looks, but she always tips very generously (her grandfather left her quite a sum of money when he died, and it's just been collecting interest in some Muggle bank for years).

They continue drifting apart, avoiding one another. They sleep in the same bed, but not in one another's arms. The gulf between them grows. The time they sleep together shortens. He comes home later; she gets up earlier.

She is finally fired one day. She stays out all day and night to avoid him, applies for a job at the café. They don't mind her lack of education. She's got manners and a good memory, and they're always in need of more help.

She knows there is no one else. She wonders if he knows, too. It doesn't matter. Let him imagine that she leads this glamorous life, gallivanting with rich men (always the money, the one thing he lusts after and envies and obsesses over). Still, he is making a decent salary and she is not making enough to cover her half of the rent.

She doesn't want to keep dipping into her savings, and she wonders if he'll keep paying her half until she gets back on her feet. He knows she's been fired. Either he's heard, or he's noticed her absence at the office. Even he isn't that oblivious.

She comes home from a double-shift on the first of the month to find he's packed her stuff and left it at the door. So very like him; she can imagine him now just folding everything and placing it neatly and meticulously into her suitcases (he would only do it by hand, really. She doubts he knows any packing spells). There won't be anything left of hers in the apartment, nothing to show that anyone other than he had ever lived there.

"Penelope."

"Percy."

He nods, curtly, as if she is a servant. She gathers as much dignity as she possibly can, levitates her suitcases, and turns around. The door closes lightly behind her and she feels tears streaming down her face.

It's not as if she didn't see it coming. She saw it from miles away, but she didn't want to. He is her friend, her lover, her partner, her everything. No, was.

She crashes at her coworker's place. The look on her face says everything.

She lies awake every night, thinking about him. Sleeping is hard. Not crying is hard. Not thinking about him is hard. She does a double take every time she sees red hair. She takes a second job at a bar. Her new boss has horn-rimmed glasses, and it's hard for him to look at her.

She dreams of him often. Sometimes she's lying on the floor, motionless. She can't move. He walks over, whispers in her ear, "no need to worry, my love." Sometimes, she's running behind him and she just can't catch up no matter how hard she tries. He mounts a broom that comes out of nowhere and goes even faster, until he's out of sight. Sometimes, they're patrolling the corridor, sixteen again, embarrassed to hold hands.

Sometimes, the one she dreams of is not him at all, but another man. Her father, her brother, her coworker, her classmate. They are lying in the ocean, in a bed, on the floor. He leaves, and she is powerless to stop him. But when she wakes up the only one she can think of is the one man who never appears in these kinds of dreams.

The weeks pass. She sleeps with a creepy guy from the bar. He never calls her back, which is fine. She'd rather not have sex with anyone if she has to watch out whose name she calls out (after two weeks, she can no longer remember this man's name). Days are growing longer. It's still cold, but there are hints of spring in the air.

Lee Jordan sees her on the street one day. She remembers him as that slightly amusing Gryffindor boy who called the quidditch matches but was always in trouble for his outrageous stunts, most of which she'd nearly (but not quite) caught. She's surprised he remembers her at all, but he remembers she was always good with technology.

He recruits her to work on his radio show, and she accepts. She stops working at the bar; _Potterwatch_ gets lots of donations and they divide it up evenly among the employees. After a couple of weeks, they have to go on the run. She doesn't mind.

One day she wakes up and realizes that Geoffrey, the other tech worker on the show, is pretty hot. She wonders about what will happen when the war ends, different scenarios in which they could get together.

That night she realizes she can think of other men separately than him, without comparing them to him, that maybe she is over him.

That maybe she never really did love him. After all, they'd hid their relationship from everyone at the start. They'd been quite private, to the point where it seemed like they were embarrassed to be seen with the other in public. He was a nerd, a laughingstock. She was not a pureblood. Their relationship couldn't have lasted much longer even the best of scenarios. Perhaps it was better that it did end when it did.

She's more than okay with that.


End file.
